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Updated: May 7, 2025
The sound of a horse, furiously ridden, caused them to turn towards the road just as a rider dashed up to the slip-rails. "There's a fire on Barellan run," he shouted. "We want all the help we can get." Without waiting for an answer he dashed off out of sight, riding as hard as his horse would go to carry the warning and call for help to fight the common enemy. "On Barellan!" Taylor exclaimed.
"You will, dearie? Ay, and you shall. Come to me, dearie, when you are alone. Make Barellan your home whenever you need one." As she spoke Dickson and Nellie came round the corner of the verandah. The shifty eyes of the one twinkled for a moment with a glee which was not beautiful to see; the dark eyes of the other glittered. "She never said that to me," Nellie said under her breath.
As he rode the mirk of the smoke became denser, until his eyes were smarting and his lungs choking. His horse shied and tried to turn back, but Tony kept him going. The signs which served to show how great and widespread the fire was, only served to stimulate his anxiety to reach the station. Suddenly the bush gave way before him as he emerged on to the Barellan road.
But he came back and never mentioned Ailleen's name, and set out again for the gold-fields still without mentioning her name; and then, while he was away, there came to her brief shreds and echoes of gossip, all circling round Ailleen, and all tending to prove that she was striving to wed young Dickson and Barellan, as Mrs. Taylor added with scorn and to forget the comrade of her childhood.
A mile from Barellan homestead, and running through a patch of scrub, there was a long, level stretch of land, so smooth of surface and so free from timber that it was almost as if it had been purposely cleared and levelled to afford a track for a gallop.
"I would have told him, only I couldn't get him by himself; for it seems a bit queer to me, what with Yaller-head going out to Barellan and young Dickson going bail for Bob Murray's stores," the storekeeper said. "It ain't no business of ours, Smart it ain't no business of ours; but I'd as lief have seen him and Yaller-head in double harness as any." "And why not?" Smart asked.
The fire that Tony lit in the grass at Barellan would have been of no value in saving the station had not another been lit farther away and nearer the onward rushing line of raging fury.
"Look here, young fellow," Slaughter exclaimed savagely, "if you come here as often as I come to Barellan, I'll be satisfied. The less I see " "Dry up," Barber called out. "Dickson came with a message for me. What's it to you if the boy has doings with me?" Slaughter said nothing, and Dickson, with an uneasy laugh, looked round at Barber.
"Sam Nuggan was in to-day with a chipped cog off his reaper, and he says, 'Cullen, he says, 'I've got it. 'No! says I. 'Yes! says he. 'It's all along of that yaller head and young Dickson of Barellan."
"Nellie!" the other girl exclaimed. "Oh yes, I know," Nellie retorted. "I know. It's me, I suppose, who is interfering with you, now I've found out where you're always coming for rides? But you just understand this. Willy Dickson is going to marry me, or I'll know why, and so will Bobby and father. The sooner you get out of Barellan and leave other girls' fellows alone the better."
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